Things in one's head
Oct 13, 2007 by
libjpn
Jes asks me over at the mothership
The example of the person who drew children in sexual situations is borderline. Was he drawing from life? If so, then his drawings were evidence that he had participated in criminal activity. A better example (which has also happened) would be if a commercial developer gets a series of photos of naked children playing together. They report the photos to the police; the police investigate: and find (a) that the series of photos was taken by the children's mother, and are of her children playing in the family garden: or (b) that the series of photos was taken by a male neighbor, whose house overlooks the garden, and who has a string of child molestation non-convictions in his past. If the police bring charges of child pornography against the neighbor when they wouldn't against the mother, which I think would be the case, they're clearly doing so because of what they guess the thoughts in the neighbor's mind to be.... and do you think they're right to do so?
(In fact, though I've heard of parents/family members being queried by the police about photos of naked children, I've never heard of this by itself resulting in conviction. But I bet it would be enough to let the police get a search warrant for the neighbor's computer and his house, to see if they could find any other evidence.)
I do have a strong (which is not to say correct) recollection of the case and the person was arrested and convicted for 'possession' of child pornography and the pornography was images the person had created and there was no other associated crime. And I hope that Jes would agree that there is a problematic notion that we can judge the contents of people's minds. We certainly have moved in that direction in trying to convict people on terror charges.
So my wondering about this is that there seems to be a conflict between the need for society to draw some needed lines about what is right and what is wrong (cf hate crimes and genocide), and what seems to be the result of fear (cf terror and kiddie porn) Just like terrorism, where it is ok if we do it, but terrorism when someone else does something similar, I see society pushing sexually charged images of teens and being horrified that people might get the wrong idea from it. And while I think that actions need to be punished, that case sticks in my mind as punishing thoughts in one's mind.
I'm also thinking that the Malkin stalking the Frosts plays into this. We all get told that anything one writes on the net is public and that we should no longer consider our emails private, so even though we now consider computers to be our 'outboard brain' in Cory Doctorow's terms, we seem to be moving to a notion that our brains are no longer private.
Comments
Oct 13, 2007, 07:20:56 Jeff wrote:
<<Was he drawing from life? If so, then his drawings were evidence that he had participated in criminal activity.>>
Depends what "from life" means. If someone draws a picture that is actionable, the drawing is actionable as well, I'd think. But if someone takes innoculous photos and uses them as source material, is that different from someone drawing based on their memories of real-life scenarios?
I would think not, but I'd like to hear how it might be.
Oct 13, 2007, 07:49:55 Jesurgislac wrote:
When people are prosecuted for owning child pornography (at least in the UK - my vague recollections are that this is different in the US) what they are actually prosecuted for (when there's no other offense but possession of child pornography) is having in their possession photographs or videos of a crime being committed - the crime being the sexual violation of a child. (You can, of course, genuinely and accidentally download a photo like this by browsing the web and not realising what sort of website you're looking at: which is one reason why when the police ask for charges to be brought for possession, they generally reference thousands of such photos - "possession" on the hard drive on such a scale that the computer is used to visit these sites often.)
I would imagine an actual paedophile would have to be very, very stupid to hand over photographs of naked children to be developed by a commercial processor, but fairly obviously, if someone reports suspicious-looking photos to the police, the police are required to investigate. After all, people <I>are</I> often very stupid. (I'm told by people with some inside information that this happens more often than you'd think, but that the police follow-up tends to be a single visit to establish that yes, it really was just a family pic: and I've noticed that the stories that come out tend to be because the family complain about it.)
Having written porn, or drawings, or photographs/video of perfectly legal sexual activities, may be prosecuted, but under different legislation - the charge would be possession of obscene materials, I think, but anyway, not child molestation.
OTOH, if the person being investigated turns out to have large quantities of child porn, written or drawings, in their house/on their computer, this could be considered additional evidence if the person under investigation has been accused of child molestation.
None of that depends on what the person was <i>thinking</I>. (The example I came up with, of the neighbor photographing someone else's kids playing naked: I am fairly sure, if that's all they found when they investigated, that they would not be able to prosecute for anything but a possible "possession of obscene materials", and that would be risky. (But, I'm fairly sure there would either be a civil or a criminal charge that could be brought against the neighbor for peeking into the other garden.)
But I have no idea what the law would be in the US. Wasn't there a case where a man had an underwear catalogue and all the models in it were over 18, but some of them were dressed up as schoolgirls? I think (though I couldn't swear to it) that the Supreme Court finally decided that you can't prosecute someone for owning child pornography when he owns no photographs of actual children - but that the law was changed so that from then on you <I>could</I> be prosecuted for material where the models were <I>or appeared to be</I> under 18?
Oct 13, 2007, 13:28:16 dr ngo wrote:
What I'm struck by is the fact that "paedophilia," along with "terrorism," has of late taken over as the UNFORGIVABLE crime that American culture apparently always have to have.
When I was growing up - Back In The Day - these were not the fillers for that particular categorical blank. Yes, molesting children and throwing bombs were regarded as Bad Things, and perpetrators, when caught and convicted, were duly punished, and we were told that child molesters were given a particularly hard time by other convicts, but with no suggestion that We, The Innocent, ought to share in this discrimination.
The UNFORGIVABLE sin then was Communism and related offenses. This was the one that would be thrown into any argument over civil rights - "Well, of course we have free speech, but not to talk Communist treason!" "Yes, we have freedom of association, but that doesn't apply to Communists, who have to register as enemy aliens" [BTW, this is actually true, for those of you too young to remember BITD. The US govt decided, in its wisdom, that the US Communist Party was in reality an agency of the Soviet Union, and therefore party members were {notionally} required to register that fact, much as a lobbyist for a foreign government has to.] "Yes, you have a right to a passport, but not to travel to Communist countries [and my first passport was specifically "Not Valid" for travel to Albania and a few other Rotten Red countries.]
Big Communism is dead and gone, but the need for an UNFORGIVABLE remains, it seems. Drug Pushing comes close, but only if the accused (which is, of course, tantamount to "the convicted") is a true Drug Lord, not just an ordinary pusher. Terrorism, of course, and what would we do without 9/11?
But pedophilia has risen surprisingly quickly (in historical terms - I'm talking decades, not months) into the UNFORGIVABLE category in a way it simply wasn't BITD.
So I'm curious as to just when and why we (who? not me!) decided that interest in sex with minors was not just bad - which has generally been acknowledged - but *worse* than murder, arson, aggravated assault, rape (of a person beyond the age of consent), &c. So much so that it would justify taking away the civil liberties that otherwise we so cherish.
Don't we?
Oct 13, 2007, 14:20:34 libjpn wrote:
dr ngo,
Thanks for that, that is getting closer to what I was mulling over. I tend to think that one reason driving this is that we don't like to think how we as a society are complicit in the whole thing by pushing certain images and holding youth as something that is prized above all else.
I also read somewhere that the easiest way to evaluate how developed a society is is to look at the age of menarch, with the most developed society having the lowest, though the studies may be dealing with survey populations that are too small and hetereogenous. However, as the age of menarch declines, the potential for problematic encounters increases, possibly giving rise to more potential pedophiles.
But I don't think this provides and adequate explanation of why pedophilia has become unforgivable.
Oct 13, 2007, 18:09:50 Jesurgislac wrote:
I think it's probably related to the fact that all the data says that a child is most likely to be molested/violated by someone in their immediate family, or some other trusted adult. And this is just not something that most people want to think about. (Freud, after all, invented a psychological complex to explain away the number of women he analysed who reported that their fathers had sexually molested them as children.) Therefore, whip up the myth of "stranger danger", and talk about "paedophiles" as an alien species, rather than men who simply decide that as this is their child, they get to do what they like with her - or, more rarely, with him.
Oct 13, 2007, 18:12:43 Jesurgislac wrote:
Well, of course "stranger danger" isn't precisely a myth. But, crimes against children by adults who do not know the child are extremely rare. It's reasonable enough to warn children to be wary of strangers, but it would make more sense, if trying to protect children from harm, to give children the legal right to leave their families and/or change schools - and <I>respect</I> that right, on the basis that the child may have been assessing a danger which they are trying to avoid.
Oct 13, 2007, 19:55:12 OCSteve wrote:
I know a guy whose computer died a few years ago. He took it to a repair shop and dropped it off. Three days later the cops showed up at his house with a search warrant and they ripped the place apart. They confiscated his work laptop and every video tape he owned.
The computer shop had found a thumbnail image of what appeared to be kiddie porn on his hard drive. It was literally one tiny image file in his browser cache, and it was debatable whether the girl was 15 or 19 (who knows these days).
He readily admitted he was into online porn, but he had no idea how that one image got on his hard drive. Being a thumbnail it’s conceivable it was buried on a page he hit and downloaded and he never even noticed it. The forensic search of the hard drives turned up nothing else incriminating.
They pretty much ruined his life because even the suspicion of pedophilia can do that.
Oct 13, 2007, 19:56:33 OCSteve wrote:
LJ: BTW – you’re likely to get some interesting search site hits on this page!
Oct 13, 2007, 20:10:56 OCSteve wrote:
Another thought – is anime porn a “thought crime”? Child-like images in sexually explicit situations – why not?
Oct 13, 2007, 20:56:48 Jesurgislac wrote:
OCSteve, when people tell stories like that I have to wonder how likely it is that there really was <I>just one</I> thumbnail image... because when someone is telling a story on themselves, they're really very unlikely to tell it as "Sure, I had about a thousand pics like that on my hard drive - I really get turned onto teenage girls and I think it's stupid that I can't have photographs of naked fifteen year olds to lech at - " and much more likely to make it sound as harmless and as innocent as possible.
Because, frankly: while I don't <I>know</I> what a local police force in the US would do, a local police force in the UK wouldn't bother doing that kind of search for just one thumbnail sketch, unless (which I fear is possible in any locale) they wanted an excuse to target the guy for a search for some other reason.
Oct 13, 2007, 21:05:22 Jesurgislac wrote:
OCSteve: <I>Another thought – is anime porn a “thought crime”? Child-like images in sexually explicit situations – why not?</I>
If someone draws a picture from their imagination, it tends to fall under the same legislation as written porn. It's <I>photographs</I> that legislation targets, for fairly obvious reasons. I do hope you actually comprehend the distinction, OCSteve - a photograph of a fifteen-year-old girl in a sexual situation is a photograph of a girl who is being abused. By downloading the photograph, the person who does it is participating in the abuse. A decent man wouldn't participate in the sexual abuse of a fifteen year old girl - not even long-distance and without any possibility of actually having to meet this fifteen-year-old girl face-to-face.
Now these laws can be taken to absurd and damaging lengths - it is illegal in some jurisdictions for a teenager to possess naked/sexual photographs of <I>herself</I> (or of himself) - but the principle, that someone who looks for photographic evidence of a sexual abuse in order to lech over it <B>is committing a criminal offense</B>, is one I agree with.
I don't have a problem with photographic porn if everyone involved is adult, consenting, and ideally either made not-for-profit or all the models are being paid fairly. I do have a problem with sexual exploitation, especially sexual exploitation of minors. I would have expected you to have a similiar problem, OCSteve.
Oct 13, 2007, 21:07:16 OCSteve wrote:
True enough Jes. Having known the guy for years I did tend to believe him though. He did show me the police report and it did reference just one image – and the results of the search turned up nothing else.
Oct 13, 2007, 21:13:25 OCSteve wrote:
“I would have expected you to have a similiar problem, OCSteve.”
Well of course I do. What did I say to make you think otherwise? I’m not even comfortable with “teen” porn as in 18 and 19 year olds. I think that the cut-off age should be 21. If you can’t buy a beer legally you sure as heck shouldn’t be able to legally be a porn star…
Oct 14, 2007, 00:41:15 marbel wrote:
There are some geographical differences in those laws OCSteve... In the Netherlands you can buy a beer as from 16, but you are not allowed to drive a car till you're 18. In 2003 they changed the law about sexpics: before that time it was punishable if the subject was under 16, these days it is punishable if the subject is under 18.
In sexual relationship there are three groups in the law: children = under 12 = always prohibited. pubescents = 12-16 = illegal to have sex with adults or with people with more than 5 years difference in age. Sex between peers is officially illegal in that group, but only if one party complains officially (to protect the sexual development en freedom of pubescents; consentual should be possible).
Concentual sex will not be punished. The third group, adults, can have any kind of sex they want as long as it is consentual and the other party is ... eh... what's the english term.... metally capacitated. So it is illegal with retarded people, unconcious or seriously incapacitated people, and also with pubescents more than 5 years younger.
Whilst trying to google for the official limits of sex with youngsters I actually found a <a href="http://www.pedofilie.nl/">dutch site</a> to discuss pedofilia. Discussions there (I'm curious, I'll read them) are remarkably civil and I found that they make an important distinction between pedofiles and pedosexuals. There are quite a number of people who fall in love with children but feel that sexual relationships with their loved one would be so damaging FOR the child that they should refrain from it.
Some quite interesting discussions about wether childporn pics would be a help (get rid of the sexual tension through fantasy and masturbation) or a hindrance (feeding the sexual fantasies), with all parties agreeing that any kind of force is wrong.
They feel that being able to talk about your pedofilia might help pedofiles to lead normal lives and discuss how to act upon your feelings. If you completely fall in love with a 13 yo (butterflies in your stomach and everything) but do not want sex with him because you think it would be bad for the child, would masturbation help getting rid of the tension, or would it merely be fuel for the sexual drive and be dangerous?
It is too far from my own preferences to have a sensible opinion, but I think being in the open and being able to discuss and help makes more sense than being so despicable in the eyes of society that you cannot search for guidance.
I also think there's a difference betwee a mature 15 yo and a 8 yo child, and that should be recognizable. When is a child into sex? When do boys and girls start masturbating? Isn't that more or less when sex becomes a real item? Or is it menarche and the first wet dream, as tokens of physical maturity? Both are under the current American agelimit I think.
Oct 14, 2007, 04:32:10 DaveC wrote:
I think that paedophiles that molest young children should be removed from society for life. They simply cannot be trusted to have any kind of sensible behavior, ever again.
Now, that being said, I remember an event in my life as a teenager at a music festival. After drinking, dancing, kissing hugging and touching, etc., this pretty girl that I had met said "This has been such a great weekend; my friends even let me drive part of the way here." My response: "What. Do. You. Mean., 'they even let me drive'?"
Yikes.
Did that make me a sex offender? Should I have been put on a watch list?
I knew people in High School that had underage sex, and then have been married and faithful for over 30 years. But now and again, you see 17 year old kids being put on a sex offender list for having relations with 16 year olds. Is that crazy or what?
So there are laws that are pretty messed up. I was a shy kind of guy as a teenager: no sex until after high school; usually my "conquests" took place after we had been partying and drinking. Sometimes the girl regretted the night before. Sometimes I did. Is that rape?
Thank goodness that the girls I had awkward, unsatisfactory sex with were my friends. My first experience was pretty terrible, but my sister was talking to that girl a year or so ago, and she remembered me fondly, and sent her best wishes. Same goes with a few others. Not all sex turns out good, but you have to take a chance.
What I think is ugly is all these media stars like Britney Spears, Kevin Federline, Justin Timberlake, etc., that clearly don't give a damn about their girlfriends / boyfriends / children. These people were child stars, teen idols, and are in our faces all the time. They clearly don't care about other people, but are the media representation of what relationships are all about. It is ugly and corrosive of our social values.
It is wrong to just simply use people as sex toys. They funny thing is, as a middle aged man, I find that teenage girls are ever more pretty and attractive. I remember my son breaking up with a girl that was drop dead gorgeous, and I'm thinking "What are you, crazy?"
And don't get me started on my daughter and her smokin' hot friends.
Jeez, I am reminded of the old Faces song:
"I wish that I knew what I know now,
When I was younger.
Ooh La La."
On the other hand, I have also been friend with many grown women that are pretty damned hot, and available, and have limited my relationships with them to hugging, flirting and joking. I often think about sexual adventures, but opt out for peace of mind.
Peace of Mind is underrated these days, I think.
Oct 14, 2007, 18:33:09 Jesurgislac wrote:
OCSteve: <I>He did show me the police report and it did reference just one image – and the results of the search turned up nothing else.</I>
Hm. How weird. I take it back, then: clearly at least one police force in the US <I>will</I> - and I agree that doing it for just one thumbnail image is pretty stupid.
Marbel: <I>In sexual relationship there are three groups in the law: children = under 12 = always prohibited. pubescents = 12-16 = illegal to have sex with adults or with people with more than 5 years difference in age. Sex between peers is officially illegal in that group, but only if one party complains officially (to protect the sexual development en freedom of pubescents; consentual should be possible).</I>
And I think that is about the most sane set of age of consent laws I can imagine. It allows pubescent kids to have consensual sex with their age-peers, protects them against sexual exploitation by adults, and gets around the awkward on-off switch where one side of a birthday anything you do is illegal, and the other side anything you do is legal.
<I>It is too far from my own preferences to have a sensible opinion, but I think being in the open and being able to discuss and help makes more sense than being so despicable in the eyes of society that you cannot search for guidance.</I>
Which does make sense. Except I <I>still</I> wouldn't want someone who was sexually attracted to children taking care of them... Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was fairly clearly a paedophile, but there's no evidence that he ever molested a child or even made a child feel uncomfortable because of his attraction towards them. But I can't help feeling that for every Dodgson there's probably fifty men who wouldn't be that restrained...
Oct 15, 2007, 02:24:05 marbel wrote:
<i>Which does make sense. Except I <I>still</I> wouldn't want someone who was sexually attracted to children taking care of them... Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was fairly clearly a paedophile, but there's no evidence that he ever molested a child or even made a child feel uncomfortable because of his attraction towards them. But I can't help feeling that for every Dodgson there's probably fifty men who wouldn't be that restrained...</i>
You assume that'd be the trusted adult? To be honest, I wouldn't either. But if I really think about it, I know that my kids might allready have all sorts of trusted adults who had peadophilic tendenses. I put a lot of emphasis on them being in charge of their own body (including not having to kiss anybody they don't want to kiss) to try to prevent abuse. I also explain that there are people who want to have sex with others when that person doesn't want them too, and that that is like hurting someone when you are angry: the perpetrator is wrong and the victim should speak up.
But I cannot guarantee a paedosexual free environment, so my main concern is with giving them armor.
At the same time, there just *are* people who fancy young kids and they currently are in hiding. Is that a better solution? Does that make society safer?
In Dutch you have a saying "you should not tie the cat to the bacon". So indeed, all temptation should be avoided. At the same time our policy with most things is that keeping them hidden and out of control is not likely to improve them. On the peadophile site they say that, like any other group of people, they have a certain percentage of abusers and bad people too. But there are enough people who try to find the right way to life with how they feel.
I have 4 lesbians in my basketball team. We often shower together after a match (Dutch sporthalls usually don't have private showers). I've had people expressing their worry about that. Apart from the fact that since childbirth I'm less likely to be the porn pin-up girl, I think it is weird to assume that lesbians would just all glow over my body, would want sex (even though most have partners) or would have a problem controlling themselves.
Would I be "safer" if they didn't there to come out? Is someone who falls in love with children not also likely to be a person who tries to do the right thing for everybody concerned? Isn't having things out in the open and being able to discuss them *and* the limits more clearly?
Oct 15, 2007, 03:36:02 OCSteve wrote:
Jes: <i>It allows pubescent kids to have consensual sex with their age-peers, protects them against sexual exploitation by adults, and gets around the awkward on-off switch where one side of a birthday anything you do is illegal, and the other side anything you do is legal</i>
I’m sure you’ve heard of one of our more bizarre cases: Genarlow Wilson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
10 years for consensual oral sex between a 17 year old and a fifteen year old. Ten years because oral sex is much worse than intercourse in the state of Georgia.
This has to be one of the most bizarre cases I’ve ever heard of.
Oct 15, 2007, 03:39:16 marbel wrote:
I heard OCSteve, and it is one of these cases where I tell myself very hard that it is NOT indicative of the mean average American of the normal American way.
IAW: It is totally completely wrong and I assume almost all Americans agree with that.
Oct 15, 2007, 04:25:11 Jesurgislac wrote:
<I>10 years for consensual oral sex between a 17 year old and a fifteen year old. Ten years because oral sex is much worse than intercourse in the state of Georgia.</I>
Yes: but then, <a href="http://www.liberalavenger.c...">he did participate in the gang rape of a 17-year-old girl and rape a 15-year-old girl</a>. So while I agree it would be better if he had been convicted of the crimes which he had committed, rather than the prosecution going for the oral sex charge because they knew they could get a conviction, I'm all in favor of rapists doing time.
<I>This has to be one of the most bizarre cases I’ve ever heard of.</I>
Not really; it's fairly standard for rapists not to be convicted, or the conviction to be overturned. It's rotten, but it's not bizarre.
Oct 15, 2007, 04:47:51 OCSteve wrote:
Dutch: “It is totally completely wrong and I assume almost all Americans agree with that”
Anyone I know anyway. 10 years of hard time for consensual oral sex with another teenager is unbelievable. The oral sex angle is the strangest part as according to Wikipedia oral sex was illegal even between husband and wife until 1998. I was stationed in GA for a few months a long time ago and didn’t even know I was breaking the law. ;)
Jes: There was video and the jury took less than an hour to find him not guilty of rape. How many rape cases have video of the alleged attack? I don’t condone taking advantage of someone incapacitated but he was found not guilty of rape by a jury. Even the article you linked concludes that he should be freed.
Oct 15, 2007, 06:18:55 marbel wrote:
In Dutch law someone who doesn't have full capacities (as in unconscious or blind drunk, or drugged) equals a child when you talk about sexual acts.
Oct 15, 2007, 07:20:38 Jesurgislac wrote:
<I>I don’t condone taking advantage of someone incapacitated but he was found not guilty of rape by a jury.</I>
Most rapists are found not guilty when their crime comes to court - the conviction rate on rape is extremely low, even when there's video evidence.
When a person is too incapacitated to give consent, whether by drink or drugs, someone who has sex with that person is committing rape. All too often - this is the case in UK rape cases too - a jury will decide that if a rape victim was drunk when she was raped, that means the man had a right to assume she consented.
Oct 15, 2007, 08:47:24 OCSteve wrote:
Jes: Write this one down – but I’m going to agree with you. The benefit of the doubt goes to the woman in any case like this.
Oct 18, 2007, 00:13:19 Ugh wrote:
My understanding of the law in the U.S. is that you cannot be prosecuted for "virtual" child pornography, i.e., pornography that does not involve an actual child; although this sometimes happens.
I generally agree with dr. ngo, we have gone insane in this country w.r.t. this type of crime, with sex offender registries (even for juveniles who have consensual sex with other juveniles), horrible age of consent laws, living restrictions on released offenders, no distinction between types of sex offenders, etc. etc. etc.
marbel - I do wonder if a different approach might be more effective at reducing the incidence of child abuse in the U.S. I.e., if there was somewhere people who find themselves sexually attacted to children could go and get help in complete confidence, but it's not going to happen anytime soon.
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